Greece
Overview The Kingdom of Greece is a semi-constitutional monarchy in southeastern Europe. Sitting at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Greece is the birthplace of Democracy and Labrycism. Greece was established in 1821 with the signing of the Treaty of Vienna and gained full independence from the Ottoman Empire. The event also marked the creation of the first fully independent Greek state since the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century. Background Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. The Eastern Roman Empire, the direct continuation to the ancient Roman Empire who ruled most of the Greek-speaking world for over 1100 years, had been fatally weakened since the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204. The Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by a victory over the Serbs to its north. First, the Ottomans won at 1371 on the Maritsa River – where the Serb forces were led by the King Vukasin of Serbia, the father of Prince Marko and the co-ruler of the last emperor from the Serbian Nemanjic dynasty. This was followed by a draw in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo. With no further threat by the Serbs and the subsequent Byzantine civil wars, the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453 and advanced southwards into Greece, capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, but by 1500 most of the plains and islands of Greece were in Ottoman hands. The mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670. The Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans (Kefalonia from 1479 to 1481 and from 1485 to 1500), and remained primarily under the rule of Venice. While most of mainland Greece and the Aegean islands was under Ottoman control by the end of the 15th century, Cyprus and Crete remained Venetian territory and did not fall to the Ottomans until 1571 and 1670 respectively. The only part of the Greek-speaking world that escaped long-term Ottoman rule was the Ionian Islands, which remained Venetian until their capture by the First French Republic in 1797, then passed to the United Kingdom in 1809 until their unification with Greece in 1864.83 While some Greeks in the Ionian Islands and Constantinople lived in prosperity, and Greeks of Constantinople (Phanariotes) achieved positions of power within the Ottoman administration,84 much of the population of mainland Greece suffered the economic consequences of the Ottoman conquest. Heavy taxes were enforced, and in later years the Ottoman Empire enacted a policy of creation of hereditary estates, effectively turning the rural Greek populations into serfs. The Greek Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople were considered by the Ottoman governments as the ruling authorities of the entire Orthodox Christian population of the Ottoman Empire, whether ethnically Greek or not. Although the Ottoman state did not force non-Muslims to convert to Islam, Christians faced several types of discrimination intended to highlight their inferior status in the Ottoman Empire. Discrimination against Christians, particularly when combined with harsh treatment by local Ottoman authorities, led to conversions to Islam, if only superficially. In the 19th century, many "crypto-Christians" returned to their old religious allegiance. The nature of Ottoman administration of Greece varied, though it was invariably arbitrary and often harsh. Some cities had governors appointed by the Sultan, while others (like Athens) were self-governed municipalities. Mountainous regions in the interior and many islands remained effectively autonomous from the central Ottoman state for many centuries. When military conflicts broke out between the Ottoman Empire and other states, Greeks usually took up arms against the Ottomans, with few exceptions. Prior to the Greek Revolution of 1821, there had been a number of wars which saw Greeks fight against the Ottomans, such as the Greek participation in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Epirus peasants' revolts of 1600–1601 (led by the Orthodox bishop Dionysios Skylosophos), the Morean War of 1684–1699, and the Russian-instigated Orlov Revolt in 1770, which aimed at breaking up the Ottoman Empire in favor of Russian interests. These uprisings were put down by the Ottomans with great bloodshed. On the other side, many Greeks were conscripted as Ottoman citizens to serve in the Ottoman army (and especially the Ottoman navy), while also the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, responsible for the Orthodox, remained in general loyal to the empire. Greek War of Independence The 1789 French Revolution and the subsequent military intervention in France by the First Coalition proved to be a blessing for the burgeoning Greek independence movement. Following the Coalition victory in 1802, the Russian Empire refocused on exploiting the dwindling power of the Ottoman Empire. Russian Tsar Alexander I was an enthusiastic supporter of the any group that could possibly weaken the Ottomans. A military mission led by Prince Pyotr Bagration was sent by the Russian government in 1804 to advise and train Greek rebels. Initially, Bagration found the Greeks to be woefully unprepared. The rebels lacked equipment, funds, and most importantly training. In addition to this, the Greek independence movement was fiercely factional with Nikolaos Skoufas from the Arta province, Emmanuil Xanthos from Patmos and Athanasios Tsakalov from Ioannina. Eventually though, the three leaders finally reconciled their differences- with notable help from Bagration who acted as a mediator- and focused their efforts on the Ottomans. With both Austria and Russia secretly sending equipment to the Greek rebels and trained by Bagration, the rebels began directly attacking Ottoman troops. Between 1806 and 1815 a series of precision strikes by the rebels led to violent Ottoman reprisals. On October 13 1815, following the killing of sixty soldiers, Ottoman troops annihilated the village of Eiríni and killed six hundred people. Skoufas, who led the resistance movement in the Peloponnese where this massacre occurred, demanded a call to arms. Within days, thousands of Greeks rised up against the Ottomans. With the Greeks in open revolt, Austria and Russia saw their chance. On October 28, both nations declared war on the Ottomans. Austrian troops marched into Bosnia while Russian forces charged into Moldavia. Faced with these monumental foreign enemies as well as internal revolts in the Balkans- the Serbs and Bulgarians rose up too- Ottoman resistance collapsed. By early 1818, the Austrians had halted after taking Bosnia while the Russians were camped across the Danube, waiting for orders. Yet in spite of all this, Greeks led by Skoufas seized Athens in March of 1818 and Tskalov had taken Thessaloniki in July 1819. The Greeks would have gone farther had it not been for the Austrians and the British. Both countries wished to maintain a delicate balance of power and that could only be guaranteed by a still somewhat strong Ottoman Empire. A ceasefire was brokered in April of 1820 and the Treaty of Vienna, which ended the war, was signed in February of 1821. Bosnia was handed to Austria and Russia established a protectorate in Moldavia. The Serbs, led by the famed Karadjorde "Black George" Petrovic, became independent and held a small area of land around Belgrade. The Greeks, however, were only allowed all their territory up until the borders of Greater Macedonia. The new Greece did not receive Thessaloniki nor the Aegean Islands, or even Crete. The war left a bitter taste in Greece, with most people putting the blame on the Austrians. Early History Greece was originally a republic, in line with classical tradition. However, as part of the Treaty of Vienna, Greece had agreed to become a monarchy, with the German Duke Leopold von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha becoming King Leopold I of the Greeks. Leopold was a staunch absolutist and greatly disliked the Greek Constitution of 1822, which he was forced to sign. He was generally unsatisfied with the amount of power allocated to the monarch in the Constitution, and sought to extend it wherever the Constitution was ambiguous or unclear while generally keeping a high level of involvement in routine politics. King Leopold I had a notorious dislike for his Prime Minister, Nikolaos Skoufas, whom he considered to be a republican dissident. Skoufas, for his part, thought that Leopold I was nothing more than a foreign puppet-king who was thrust upon Greece in its time of trouble. The King preferred the leader of the Greek Enosis Party, Emmanuil Xanthos, as a Prime Minister and tried numerous times to either relieve Skoufas of his job or to rig elections in favor of Xanthos. The King was ultimately unsuccessful and his attempts to undermine Greece's democratic institutions did little to help his dwindling popularity. In 1830, after two electoral victories, Skoufas announced his intention to resign following the upcoming general election. His party, the Democratic Liberal Party, suffered a surprising setback to the Enosis Party who, along with its allies, won 52% of seats in Parliament. In the following years, Prime Minister Xanthos passed a series of laws promoting the power and wealth of both the King and the Church. This trouble brewed until 1834 when the King attempted to bypass the election and simply appointed Xanthos again as Prime Minister. The result was explosive. The aging Skoufas came out of retirement and called for mass protests across the country. Xanthos brought in troops to restore order. Greece in 1834 seemed on the verge of civil war, but the King, seeing the writing on the wall, backed off. Democracy was restored and the Enosis party lost the 1834 elections to the Democratic Liberals, much to Leopold I's chagrin. The subsequent decade and a half of dominance for the Democratic Liberals say a strengthening of ties with Great Britain, rather than Russia, the supremacy of the state over the Church, and the Aegean Piracy Crisis of 1839. However, in spite of all this, the King continued to have a large amount of power and influence which he used to generally disrupt his government. However, in 1847, a famine struck Greece. The Democratic Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander Mogolous, proved utterly incapable of dealing with the crisis. With perhaps a fourth of Greece without food to last another week, King Leopold dissolved Parliament and took control of government affairs himself. While he did help alleviate the crisis by purchasing vast amounts of Russian grain- so much so that Greece was plunged into debt- he was still unable to end the famine. In 1850, while under increasing popular pressure, the King allowed for elections which resulted in a Enosis Party majority for the first time in sixteen years. The party effectively managed the crisis by providing vast subsidizes to farms, which naturally resulted in an increased food production. Thanks to their effective crisis handling, the next few elections saw a recurring Enosis victory. In 1862 saw a hung parliament for the first time. Neither the ruling Enosis party nor the opposition Democratic Liberals could claim a victory. This was due to the rise of one party, the Greek People's Party, which followed a new political idea of social democracy. They believed it was their duty to reform capitalism and make it more fair towards the common worker. Since the People's Party and the Democratic Liberals had somewhat similar beliefs, the two decided to form a coalition government, for the first time in Greek history. The conservative Enosis party and the King were horrified at this development. Enosis staged mass rallies against "the evils of Socialism" while King Leopold I actively tried to sabotage everything that the center-left coalition was trying to accomplish. Luckily for them, in December of 1864, Leopold I died and was succeeded by his son, Leopold II, as King of the Greeks. The new King was not an old-school autocrat like his father. Leopold II was above all, a military man, and saw a strong army and navy as key to the prosperity of his nation. He also was a great architect and sponsored, as well as help design, numerous public work projects. The King's most memorable achievement was the construction of the Corinth Canal in 1877. But Leopold II was most different from his father in that he saw Greece as his home. Leopold I often complained about the country, but his son thought of himself as Greek rather than German. He still spoke Germans as his first language, but Leopold II also could speak Greek fluently, making him initially liked by the populace. In spite of all his Hellenic ideas, Leopold II was still a fiercely independent man. He did not like being controlled. He was often impulsive and stubborn and liked to do things his own way, without interference from his government- often drawing their ire. Leopold II didn't care much about politics like his father, he cared about three things: Greece's military, the country's prestige, and his own personal wealth. Little else mattered. During the course of his reign, the King often clashed with his government as he sought to enrich himself and his country at the expense of Parliament. In the 1870s and 1880s as the Democratic Liberals, People's Party, and Enosis Party squabbled in election after election, the King grew rich. Leopold II was a capitalist, through and through, and although he is often credited with helping to industrialize Greece he made millions of drachma off of his industrial pet projects. He ran numerous olive farms whose olives were sold at ridiculous prices to the British, French, and Russians. Leopold II owned the only three steel mills in Greece which he used to make artillery, ship hulls for the Navy, and other military equipment, while all under contract from his own government. King Leopold II might have been an industrialist- he was a downright ruthless one, repressing any manner of dissent from his workers- but he was also a hedonist. He always kept a bottle of scotch with him at all times and had a taste for lobster and caviar while the majority of people in his country couldn't afford more than four loaves of bread per week. Loved by the people in the beginning, Leopold II was slowly becoming as hated as his father was, even if he didn't care. Matters were made worse by Leopold II's romantic adventures. His relationship with his wife was distant at best and the King had numerous mistresses. One of these gave birth to a son in 1884 whom Leopold II named Constantine in the Greek fashion. Constantine grew up to be energetic and had a fascination for both the military and politics. He was regularly involved in both and was beloved by the Greek people for his extremely Hellenic upbringing- he was the first royal to be born in Greece itself- and he loved his people back. In spite of all his good qualities, Constantine inherited his father's hedonistic ways in a much worse form. He was considered an alcoholic by his father and had at least thirty-one female sexual partners. Some say that he has had male "friends" although this has never been conclusively proven. Prince Constantine was also a bastard, with no right to the throne. That honor fell to his German cousin Albert von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha who was as not Greek as Constantine was Greek. This mattered not to Leopold II, who considered his nephew Albert to be a far better future King than Constantine. The People's Prince, as Constantine liked to say, felt betrayed. Albert wasn't Leopold II's son, Constantine was, and he was Greek, something that Albert was not. Modern History War came to Greece in 1889. The Serbs and Russians had provoked armed revolts in Albania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria against their Ottoman overlords. The Serbs asked if whether or not the Greeks would take the opportunity to finally capture Thessaloniki and the rest of southern Macedonia, which Greece happily did. The war was short- only lasting a little more than two years-and resulted in the independence of Bulgaria, Albania and Montenegro. The Serbs took most of Macedonia for a little while before they lost it while Greece annexed southern Macedonia. The Ottomans were allowed to keep most of Thrace. Greece also occupied the Aegean Islands and Crete. The war increased Greece's population by a fourth and almost doubled its industrial capacity with the annexation of the economic powerhouse of Thessaloniki. The King wasted no time in buying up factories and dockyards for his own personal use. The Prime Minister, Gregorios Zoukas of the People's Party, attempted to stall this by nationalizing certain industries. The King then attempted to directly offer the government a huge sum in order to buy these industries but the government refused and instead passed a law regulating the monarch's right to operate private businesses in 1898. Leopold II, enraged by this development, promptly scaled back his public appearances and support for the military, blaming all of it on parliament. A slow decline in legitimacy followed for both the King and Parliament. Leopold II was seen as corrupt- he most certainly was- and selfish while Parliament was looked at as out of touch and aloof. The military especially had no hesitation when it came to criticizing the increasingly ineffective Parliament. They had for decades been the King's men and while they still respected him, they were becoming more and more aware of his faults. In 1907, Leopold II was inspecting one of his few remaining factories when a dissatisfied worker turned Anarchist shot him. The King died two days later on November 18th, 1907. King Leopold II was remembered as the "Factory King" for some, the "Builder King" for others, but ultimately the Greek government confiscated and sold his private enterprises after the King died. The death of Leopold II allowed for his nephew, the German aristocrat Albert, to assume the throne. Albert would have waited a bit to get his affairs in order in Germany before taking his throne, but rumors of a planned coup by his cousin Constantine, who was much loved by the Greek people, forced Albert to hurry. As soon as he was crowned King Alvertos of the Greeks- taking a Greek name, in a bizarre ceremony where he took his oath of Kingship on the bible and promised to uphold the Constitution, Albert exiled his cousin, who fled to his friends in Russia. King Albert I was a very unfortunate King. It wasn't his fault he couldn't speak Greek or that he didn't understand Hellenic ways. He was never meant to be the King of the Greeks; the role was thrust upon him. Yet he never shirked his responsibilities as King. Even in Greece's darkest hour, Albert I always upheld the supremacy of the constitution above all else and abhorred tyranny more than anything. He may not have been born Greek, but now that he was their King, Albert I tried to do everything he could to improve their lot. Modern Greece As King, Albert I was unusually disassociated from politics. He might give some advice hear or a warning there but never more than necessary. He was however, a champion of worker's rights and constantly visited factories and dockyards partially to ensure safe working conditions. In 1912, King Albert I played a vital role in the Universal Male Suffrage Act of 1912, granting equal voting rights to all men. Nonetheless, he was still seen as a foreigner by most of his subjects, regardless of his charity. Albert I spent a large part of his reign dealing with pretender sentiment among large portions of the country who wish Prince Constantine to become King. In 1919, the Greek economy collapsed. Years of overproduction of olives and other resources led to a sharp decline in exports. The Greek drachma lost 50% of its value between 1919 and 1925 and inflation skyrocketed to 60% by 1928. In 1922, the military led by Ioannis Metaxas attempted a coup. It only failed thanks to the King's refusal to support a military dictatorship, although most Greeks don't realize it. Metaxas was imprisoned for only two years, in which time he wrote his political masterpiece The Labyrinth. In his book, The Labyrinth, Metaxas argues that only a strong totalitarian state, based off of classical traditions, is the only viable political ideology, which he called Labryscism. Metaxas in the book strongly disapproves of monarchy which he calls "An archaic holdover from medieval times that serve no understandable purpose other than existing for the Monarch's own benefit, socially, politically, and financially." Metaxas saw Greece as the best candidate for a new labryscist state. His death in 1925 did little to dissuade his friend Gregorios Kondylis, who took up the mantle of Metaxas to form the Spartan League, Greece's preeminent labryscist party. The growing popularity of far-left ideas has worried both Kondylis and King Albert I. In addition, on Mount Athos and in the surrounding area a group calling itself "The Hands of God" was becoming increasingly popular. Led by Orthodox radical Charles Zervas, the group advocated a theocratic Greek state with the Patriarch of Constantinople at its head. The Hands of God become so radical, in fact, that Archbishop Damaskinos, the leader of Orthodoxy in Greece and a monarchist, banned the group. Nonetheless, the 1928 elections might decide the fate of Greece, once and for all. Category:Countries Category:Europe